Stacy Horn

So as you can see, I’m in a good mood. I feel pretty again and ready for Spring! Jury duty starts today. You’re asked to call this number the night before, and the recording told me they have wi-fi, and you can bring cellphones, but you can’t take pictures (hmmm).

I’m debating just bringing a book and leaving the computer at home. Maybe I’ll bring it this time, just to see. Or not. Oh, I don’t know. I never get picked for a case. From what I can tell, if you show any capacity for thought they don’t want you. Of course I have to out myself as the author of a book about the NYPD, which doesn’t get me out of having to sit there every day, but it also means no defense lawyer is ever going to let me sit on a jury.

But I worked very hard to get enough things done so that if a miracle occurs, and I do get picked, I won’t feel anxious about all the work I should be doing.

Today is the pub date for the book written by my friend Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman! It’s called How Not to Write a Novel and you can see an hilarious animation that our friend Marianne Petit made for it on the book blog here. The book is just hysterical. A sample post from their blog:

Advance praise for How Not to Write a Novel

“… good …”
– The New York Times

” … for some reason[able] … [pass]ages … in the book.”
– Washington Post Book World

” … one of the most [amaz] … ing books of the year.”
– Philadelphia Inquirer

“Among the … books I have reviewed in 20 years.”
– Austin-American Statesman

Howard has actually helped me on every one of my books except for the first, that was the book that made him start stalking me (kidding). I happen to know that he has provided invaluable assistance to a lot of authors, but I’m not allowed to name names (they are very BIG names). You can get your copy from Amazon here!

I wrote a piece about change (that was ultimately killed) that includes a bit that explains how I came to write the line “falling with my arms wide open.”

“Life is hard. And change is what makes it that way … Why aren’t we better at? We’ve been facing change since birth, we should have it down …

“I’d been dumped months before by the man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, and I was sitting on my couch in a stupor, realizing that there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it … I just sat there, trying to watch television, with this ever present ache. Of all things, a TV movie about alien abduction called Taken came on, and the main character said, “We’re all standing on the edge of a cliff. All the time, every day. A cliff we’re all going over. Our choice isn’t about that. Our choice is about whether we want to go kicking and screaming or whether we might want to open our eyes and our hearts to what happens once we start to fall.” For the first time in months, the ache began to subside.

“… Sometime after my alien-abduction-TV-movie-epiphany, I was watching a rerun of Sex and the City. (I get all my best wisdom from TV, apparently.) At the end, Carrie Bradshaw comments about her imperfect, ever-changing life. “Maybe the best any of us can do is not quit, play the hand we’ve been given, and accessorize the outfit we’ve got.”

“I had a plan. It was time to get up off the couch. Don’t quit. Embrace the fall. And wear a nice outfit.”

And not too long after that I think, I went to Durham and started my next book. (The picture is of J. B. Rhine, the head of the former Duke Parapsychology Laboratory.)

A friend put it online for me. QUALIFICATION: I am not a great singer to begin with, but I am very shy so if I think people can hear me I get scared, and when I get scared my voice gets timid and shaky and FLAT. I did the best I could to sing past my fear, but you shall see the results.

ALSO, I didn’t mean to sound so sad! The point was, yes, life can be hard but you never know what’s going to happen next, like winning American Idol. The winning song is sung by the winner of American Idol, so the person singing this song is exemplifying what happens when you hang in there.

Anyway, here it is.

I am officially entered in the American Idol Songwriters contest. When you submit your song they ask for a bio about you AND about your song, and they only give you 100 words! This is what I said:

Everything about me and my song comes down to this part of the lyrics:

I’ve never written a song before, but I am a writer. Thank you for the opportunity. I had fun trying to write a song.

Okay, some of the time I fun. That part of the lyrics, by the way, came straight out of something that happened in my life, which I will explain later. Until I can figure out how to make the music audible in some way, here are the lyrics.

Falling With My Arms Wide Open

I’m falling with my arms wide open.
And I don’t know what happens next.
But it took everything I had just to get myself here,
and I’m ready for whatever comes next,
yes, I am ready for whatever comes next.

I push away from the table, yes the meal was fine.
The guests were funny and the wine divine.
Now it’s time to go home, and time to sleep
And dream this dream that I mean to keep.

And I’m falling with my arms wide open.
I don’t know what happens next.
But it took everything I had just to get myself here,
and I’m ready for whatever comes next,
yes, I am ready for whatever comes next.

Nobody ever tells you when dreams come true,
that some of those dreams will be bad.
When life knocks you down again and again
And it seems like you’ll always be sad …

Start falling with your arms wide open.
Because you don’t know what happens next.
You see it took everything I had, to make this dream come true,
and I’m ready for whatever comes next,
yes, I am ready for whatever comes next.
oh yes, I’m ready for whatever comes next.